McNeil to sing what he wants at 50th Live at the Lounge show
Dennis McNeil and Ed Martel will perform songs by composers notable for great lyrics during their 50th Live at the Lounge cabaret show this Sunday. Photo
Comedy and Magic Club owner Mike Lacey invited former New York Opera tenor Dennis McNeil to perform at Live at the Lounge the first time the two met. McNeil was hesitant. Lacey’s Live at the Lounge, next door to Comedy and Magic, only seats 90.
“A show’s a lot of work for 90 seats,” McNeil said.
“Not if you do a lot of them,” Lacey responded.
The conversation took place in 2011. Since then, McNeil has performed 49, mostly sold out concerts at Live at the Lounge.
This Sunday, he and accompanist Ed Martel will perform their 50th Live at the Lounge concert.
Most of the concerts had themes: Romantic songs in February, Irish songs in March, Christmas songs in December.
“It’s my birthday. I’ll sing what I want,” McNeil, who turns 57 this week, said of this week’s show. His performances are almost as memorable for his jokes and stories as for his singing.
The stories are often introductions to songs whose composers he knows from a career that began with singing opera for diners at Verdi restaurant in Santa Monica in the ‘80s and took him to opera companies in New York and Berlin in the ‘90s and then back home to Manhattan Beach, where he developed his cabaret show.
Among the songs, he talks about is Sammy Cahn’s “Three Coins in a Fountain.” McNeil toured with Cahn, a fabled storyteller who wrote many of Frank Sinatra’s hits. After every show, McNeil recalled, they’d go to a bar to unwind and Cahn would say to whoever was listening, “Name somebody famous and I’ll tell you a story about them.”
One night McNeil asked Cahn, “Which comes first. The words or the music.”
“The phone call,” Cahn answered.
Cahn told how he came to write the lyrics for “Three Coins in a Fountain,”
“Sammy got a call from a movie producer asking if he could write a song about ‘Three Coins in a Fountain.’”
“I can write a song about hay,” Cahn answered. “Can I see the movie?” The producer told him no, it wasn’t finished.
“Do you mind telling us what the movie is about?” Cahn asked. “It’s about love,” the producer said.
Cahn wrote the lyrics and Jule Styne the melody in about an hour. It won an Academy Award in 1955 for Best Song.
Cahn’s lasting influence on McNeil is evident in his fondness for strong lyricists.
Past shows have included songs ranging from Cahn and Rodgers and Hammerstein to Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison. McNeil declined to disclose Sunday’s song list, but it almost certainly will include Hal David’s haunting “Alfie.”
McNeil sang “Alfie” at the Mark Taper Theater for David’s 90th birthday party in 2010.
“To perform that for David, and Burt Bacharach, who wrote the music, really meant something to me,” McNeil said.
Sunday’s show begins at 7:30 p.m. Doors open for dinner at 6 p.m. Live at the Lounge is located at 1018 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. Tickets are $20. Call (310) 372-1193, or visit ComedyAndMagicClub.com.